


Malamute

by gardnerhill



Series: Malamute [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Post-World War I, Retirement, Veterans Day, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:00:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>April 1919. The Great War is over. Technically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Malamute

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2011 Watson's Woes community prompt for July 24 (Pick one of the four seasons and write about a storm during that season.).

The lightning flare woke Holmes a split-second before the thunder-crack sounded as if it split the house in two. He sat up, surrounded by the torrential sound of the rain beating down upon them all. Light again in the room, and a thunder-clap; it was right upon them. The first true spring thunderstorm of the year.

The unease he felt was not from the sound, nor the lightning. The car was covered, the hives secure; his prediction this afternoon about this coming storm had been spot-on. Watson had laughingly scolded him whilst helping him cover the boxes, chiding him for making all this work for naught if it was only a passing cloud on the horizon—

Watson. Oh dear Christ.

He groped for his stick, cursing the need that had grown with the steadily-increasing pain in his right hip year by year. He'd rarely ever gone about without at least one walking-stick – invaluable defense against unhappy criminals that they were – but the fact that he now required one rankled him still. Lightning again illuminated his search, and again the thunder-crack.

Moved by the same senses that had kept both of them alive for so long, he bypassed the dressing-gown entirely to fling his macintosh over his pyjamas, and left his room in his stockinged feet and not his slippers.

A cursory glance into the unoccupied guest-room and at the rumpled bedclothes only confirmed the dread building in his stomach.

His boots and umbrella stood at the kitchen door. He shoved his feet into the boots and took up the umbrella for a second, then swiftly chided his own stupidity in nearly taking such a capital lightning-rod outside. He pulled the hood over his face and opened the door.

A sheet of ice-water whipped into him. _It is only rain, only heavy spring rain._ The cold went straight to his bones, twisting a knife in his hip. Lightning smacked and cracked loud enough to be heard on its own. The pain was the very last thing that occupied his mind.

Lightning illuminated the figure standing atop the rise behind the cottage, facing toward the sea, ramrod-straight (lightning-rod straight).

He sloshed his way through the short grass and horseshoe vetch, hobbling to the clenched figure clad in its own macintosh. Clenched was the only word for it; John Watson shook, teeth locked together in a snarl under his white moustache, his fists balled tight and arms stiff at his sides, eyes glaring out over the ocean. His whole body jolted with the thunder-clap, but his eyes stayed open.

"John! Come in!" Holmes shouted over the wind-swept downpour. "It's not safe here! Come down! Come back in!"

"It's only rain!" Watson shouted back, his voice cracking with fear. "Lightning! Thunder!" The last, partially-drowned by the bellowing clouds above.

Rain beating down on them, and not the rattle of gunfire. Lightning, and not phosphorous bombs illuminating the fields. Thunder, only thunder and not what it would have sounded like inside the cottage.

Outside, he could see the peaceful grassy downs soaking in the heavy downpour – could see a turbulent ocean and chalk cliffs, devoid of all human life but their own, seemingly. No muddy trenches; no barbed wire; no blood; no bodies.

It wasn't safe for him, standing as the highest point in a fierce thunderstorm? He was safer than he'd been for nearly four years.

Holmes laid his free hand on Watson's forearm. "Watson. Come with me."

"I'm not going inside!" Panic in his voice.

"Nor am I, old man. But come down. Come down. Down."

Slowly, like a tug turning a warship, Holmes guided Watson down the hill. Every thunderclap jolted him into rigidity, head turning to stare wildly over the deserted downs.

Back to the cottage – and around it, past the front door. The bench under the arbour, on the seaward side. They were sodden and chilled; Holmes' hip was a knife of ice. There they sat, looking over the sea. The arbour provided scant protection against the rain.

"The Malamute," Holmes said, over the wind, saying the words precisely over his teeth's desire to chatter, "is an Alaskan Esquimeaux sled dog. The animals can pull enormous burdens for days at a time, all at a dead run. Their reward for this toil is a lump of frozen fish. When they sleep, they do so out in the elements, curled so that they face directly into the Arctic blizzards. They will drop dead in their traces pulling their hearts out rather than fail their masters. They are the strongest and bravest dogs in the world."

Rattle of rain on the leaves, and not gunfire.

"It's only rain," Watson repeated, his eyes never turning away from the sea. "The storm will pass."

And so they waited.

 

 _Welcome home, boys, welcome home_  
 _Don't you know, you've been gone too long_  
 _May the years bring you release, as the memories decrease_  
 _May you find some kind of peace, welcome home._                    – Eric Bogle


End file.
